11.4.5 National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC)
Established in 1994, its mission is "to make quality the essential element of higher education in India through a combination of self and external quality assessment and accreditation."
Towards this end it undertakes periodic assessment and accreditation of institutions of higher education or units thereof, or specific academic programs or projects. It encourages stakeholders’ participation in quality assessment, encourages higher education institutions to develop internal systems and processes for quality assessment, promotes the development and dissemination of best practices as benchmarks of assessment and quality enhancement, and collaborates with other agencies for quality assessment in higher education.
Till date, NAAC has accredited 129 out of a total of 165 University-level institutions and 2956 colleges out of the total of 5273 colleges. It would like to expand its activities to reach a larger percentage of higher education centres and also to engage in research on the methodology of new accredition parameters. Research related quality assurance in higher education, continuous modification and fine-tuning of the assessment instrument and analysis of assessment and accreditation: related documents, is imperative to any quality assurance agency.
